Quilt Day-BInky Patrol Day

 wow, what a day.  20 high school students showed up to help sort, cut and sew fabrics for stockings for our returning wounded soldiers.  We completed 150 and have at least that many in the process of being sewn.

 Of course, snacks were in order for the day and this time the kids worked more than they ate!

 We had a few boys sewing this time around and doing a great job.  These two are my kids, the boy in the striped shirt and the girl behind him.  My daughter organized all of the students and says we should expect twice as many tomorrow!  Yikes!

 The kids had a great time using the Accuquilt Studio fabric cutter to cut out stockings as well as other pieces for more quilts.  Carla always has a huge box or 12 of scraps for the kids to cut through.  By the time they are finished, we have a couple of bags of tiny scraps for dog bedding.  Nothing gets wasted around here.

 My son probably sewed 80-100 stockings by himself.  The kids sewed around the main stocking part, then sewed another piece for the top and I and another lady put the whole thing together.  We had a hard time keeping up with all of our student stocking makers.

 I love to listen to the conversations the kids have.  This teacher is mean, that one gives too much homework.  I"m just waiting for them to forget I'm in the room and to say something about me :)

We even had a couple of ladies working on quilts for Superstorm Sandy kids.  Several quilt kits were donated that were almost complete.  The ladies were trying to figure out what the original owner of the project was thinking and wondering why they gave up on the project.

Tomorrow is another quilt day.

Oh, and the news reporter came out from the local paper, so I expect we will have a story in there tomorrow.  She took a lot of pictures of me trying to thread the needle after I broke one.  My poor eyes aren't what they used to be!

Chargers Fans?

I think that is a football team right?  Well, all I really know is I had about 2 yards of the Chargers fabric and used the Take 5 die from my Accuquilt Studio cutter and whipped up these twin quilts (about 54x68 inches).  One will go to the Aurora Colorado quilt cause and the other will be donated locally to my friend who visits the returning wounded.  I think my friend can find a Chargers fan who would like one of these.  Now to work on the Dolphins quilt that is cut out the same way.

sewn together

here's the purple quilt top sewn together.  I just love the tumbler die for my Accuquilt Studio cutter.  Crank out the pieces in about 20 minutes, sew the top together in an hour, maybe 1 1/2 hours and then quilt it.  The longest part is laying it out so no two pieces are the same. It is much easier when you have a ton of different fabrics in a quilt to make sure two adjoining pieces never touch (except maybe corner to corner).  Quilting should take me maybe 30 minutes and then binding another 30 minutes.  BIG quilt done in 3-4 hours.  Not bad.

After a long day of teacher training

I came home and quilted this.  I sewed the top together yesterday.  It is just 8 1/2 inch squares with a 6 1/2 inch border and it made up really quickly.  The pieces were cut on the Accuquilt Studio last December and cleared out a box.  Just enough for a quilt.  This one will go to Colorado when it is finished.

I have several 'must do' quilts that I really should be working on.  One for my sister in law out of my mother in law's shirts, one for a teacher friend's daughter.  My friend died last year in a canoe accident and I finally got her clothes a couple weeks ago.  I offered to make a memory quilt for her grand kids.  The blood donor shirt.  I keep collecting more shirts but I need to just say, "ENOUGH" and make the quilt.  If I get more shirts, I can either wear them or make another quilt.  I only have 3 weeks left before I go back to school, so I had better get busy.  The next two days will be taken up with more training.  We haven't had any paid training in at least 10 years, so I figured I'd check it out.  It is a cooperative learning strategies that is 'bigger and better' than all the rest, but it really just takes stuff I learned in teacher credential school and puts new names on it.  Why didn't I come up with something like this?  It's also geared towards elementary students, but I've gotten a couple of good ideas out of it, plus they fed us breakfast and lunch.  Can't complain too much.  If only they let me cut fabric while listening.  I really can multi task :)

Just needs binding

and this one will be ready to send to Colorado. Have you joined the Aurora Colorado Emergency Response Quilts Facebook page yet?  They have a big goal and can use all the help from lots of quilters.  I sorted through all of my larger quilt tops and have another 5 that will be quilted this week and boxed up to send out.  I have a bunch of these types of scrappy squares that will be made into at least two more quilts to be sent as well.  The Accuquilt Studio will be seeing some more action and cutting up more scraps very soon.  Plus I will be working on my Christmas in July quilt inbetween projects.

If only my headache would go away.

The fridge repair guy is supposed to be coming this afternoon...or is it tomorrow.  They called yesterday and said he would come today, but then sent an email saying he was coming on July 25.  So, I'm not sure if they got the date wrong or the day of the week wrong.  It's ok, I've been waiting for the roof repair guy to show up for 2 1/2 weeks now.  He said he was coming on July 6 and I haven't heard back from him since.  I should just call another company, but that would require me to look up another company and then make another phone call.  Too much work and it isn't raining.

I'd rather spend my time quilting :)

100th quilt for the year

If you are looking for the Red, White and Blue blog hop, look down further on the blog :)

this is the 100th quilt I've quilted so far this year!  Woo Hoo!
No, I didn't piece all of the quilts I've quilted, you see we have quite the assembly line going around here.  I'm the area coordinator for Binky Patrol (www.binkypatrol.org) and we get together at least every other month, more often in the summer to make quilts for kids.  I have about 20 loyal committed ladies and teens who work on these quilts.  Some gals love to cut fabric with my Accuquilt Studio fabric cutter.  We make lots of these quilt kits from the pattern that can be found at maryquilts.com  Some love to sew the tops together and then they bring them back to either me or my friend Carla.  We quilt them up and then pass them along to either Rhoda the binding beast, Judy or Nancy to finish off.  Then, they give me a call and I pick them back up and find homes for them.  I pass them off to Kathleen or Wendy who take them to Solano Child Protective Services where they are given to foster kids, they go to Mary who takes them to NorthBay Health care, or they go to Nurse Family Partnership for moms and new babies.  Some quilts get the personal hand delivered touch and go to kids I know.  I teach high school and hear about a lot of kids who need a quilty hug.  I give them to the counselors at my school to pass along or friends of friends.  I get emails from friends all the time saying they heard of a family who lost a parent or someone was in a car accident and needs a quilt.  I always keep a few quilts on hand for emergencies, but can whip up a quilt pretty quickly if needed.  I just timed myself and made a quilt for a local girl battling cancer in 5 hours and 40 minutes.  She loved it :)

I'm quilting up another one to give to my kids' tennis coach whose son was in a motorcycle accident.  He got out of the hospital yesterday.  The doctors said it was a miracle he is alive.  I believe in miracles and I also believe in quilty hugs!

Red, White and Blue Blog Hop, My Day, Welcome!

Welcome to my blog all you hoppers!  I hope your legs aren't getting tired just yet :)

The thing I love most about a blog hop is getting to see so many different and new blogs.  So many people have so many different and great ideas about quilting and life and I've learned a lot already.  Just the first day I was blown away by the great blocks and started to sweat just a little bit, but then I thought, hey, relax and have fun with this!  I joined to make myself step outside the box and make something I wouldn't ordinarily do on my own.  I joined so I could stretch myself and grow as a quilter and a person.  So, here goes!

Of course, I also waited until the last minute to get my block done.  If you read back over the last few weeks on my blog, you will see that my family has been going through some stressful times.  My husband's mom found out she had cancer, moved to Tennessee to live out her final days with her daughter and passed away on Sunday.  I suffer from migraines and have been having a really rough time lately.  They are getting worse and worse and I'm sure the stress of everything else hasn't helped.  My oldest daughter is in Hong Kong right now teaching English (boy is she having a great time) and so today is here and I said "OH NO!" it's time to make my block for the hop :)

Well, what do you do when you are crunched for time and need to make a quilt quickly?

I GO! for my Accuquilt Go! fabric cutter.  I tell you that when my husband got it for me 2 Christmases ago he wasn't so sure I would get much use out of it.  It was a pretty big investment ($199 for the cutter from JoAnn's on sale) and each die can run from $20-$50.  But if you are smart, you will watch ebay, check out amazon or find some friends to share with.  I have no idea how I would quilt without my Accuquilt!  Especially these half square triangles.  Before the Accuquilt, I could only sew squares together :) (And I don't get paid for saying any of this--I just love them that much)

So, I grabbed two of my favorite dies, the 6 1/2inch half square triangle and the 6 1/2 inch quarter square triangle (which is called the 4 7/8 inch triangle--weird name huh?-it also makes flying geese, but I haven't tried those yet) and got busy cutting some Red, White and Blue fabrics.  I have a good friend named Debbie who brought me some fabulous fabrics from her stash last summer.  She knows I make LOTS and LOTS of quilts for kids (big and small) and brought me up a whole car load of fabrics.  I've been having fun playing with those fabrics and cutting them up and making quilts and giving those quilts away.  So, I grabbed some fabrics, cut them up and started sewing.  I wanted to make a pinwheel block and so I started sewing.  I sewed 6 blocks like this:

 Well, something wasn't right.  It wasn't spinning the way I wanted it to.  I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong.  That's what I get for sewing with a migraine!  I had turned the pieces the wrong way!  Silly me :)  So, then I made 6 more blocks like this:

 Each block is different, with Red, White and Blue, to go with the theme of the Hop:

 Except for this guy.  He is just Red and Blue, because I knew I was running out of time and didn't feel like cutting more white fabric.

 Here are all 12 blocks laid out next to each other.  I'm going to make some more blocks to bring this up to a Quilt of Valor size and probably do some sashing in between them blocks as well.  I have to wait until my daughter #2 comes home from tennis before I make any kind of final decision on block placement.  She always helps me decide on how the quilt looks best.  She has a great eye for color placement.

For now, I'm about to head out the door and get a shot for my migraine.  I know this post won't appear until midnight, when I will be fast asleep :)  Hopefully tomorrow I will wake up and the headache will be gone.

I hope you can hop on over to the other bloggers today and see what they are up to as well.

July 11th
Nancy R 

North Hills Quilter That's me!

Sunshine Girl

Grammie Q
knitnoid

I'd love it if you would follow me, I'm so close to 200 followers.  The Christmas in July Blog hop is coming up soon and I'd hate for you to miss out.  Santa will be bringing presents and a giveaway for that one and then the Paper Pieced Bowls Blog Hop will follow soon after.  I've never tried paper piecing so I'm excited to give that one a try too.

Thanks for stopping by!